01 August 2008

All hail hubby, Lord of furniture building...

For all that I tease him about his lack of carpentry prowess, I will readily admit that my husband is Lord and master of furniture assembly. Nobody can wield an Allen Key or turn a Cam Lock like him; it’s dead sexy!

I’m sure I’m not along in admitting that my house has one ‘crap’ room. Fess up folks, you know what I’m talking about! It’s that one room that we never quite know what to do with - the one that’s filled with a mish mash of furniture or relics from your university days - the one “blah” space that always seems to be neglected. For most people the solution is quite simple, close the door to the room and forget what lurks beyond it. For me, however, it’s very hard to disguise an open loft that guests often pass on their way to the second floor bathroom (a popular spot during parties).

When hubby and I moved into our home two years ago, we decided to turn our loft into an office. Because we had already spent a whack of money on decent furniture for all the other rooms, we simply purchased some economical desks. Hubby got a nice but modest desk and I chose a compact computer cart that would tuck inside a small nook. The desk and cart match, so at least that counts for something right? Unfortunately, the fashion buck stopped there when we introduced some hideous but practical plastic rolly-carts into the room. Between folders for home purchases, hubby’s side business and my benevolent work, we needed a cheap and easy solution to store our hordes of paper and files. Sadly, the plastic carts gave the room a bit of a slapdash student look, completely at odds with the décor of the rest of our home.

I’m not sure what drove me into a frenzy last week, but I suddenly couldn’t stomach the loft any longer. We had always discussed buying a matching set of filing cabinets and a bookcase to go with our desks, but it was something that we never got around to. Thankfully, Staples still had the set to match the desks; mysteriously the price didn’t seem to depreciate over the years (damn!). There was no going back…we were getting them come hell or high water!

One week later, the set is almost complete. Hubby has been slaving away at building the set. While they don’t look like much, I swear to God that one needs an engineering degree just to put the damn things together. One look at the ‘so-called’ directions and I was almost (just almost) willing to concede to the fate of plastic rolly-carts. Thankfully, my darling husband was blessed with the virtue of patience.

The office is almost ready now and I’m giddy to start filing things away into their neat little compartments. Even more significant is the fact that I won’t feel like body-checking anyone that tries to sneak upstairs to use the bathroom. Heaven forbid they should see anything unpleasant on their way to the porcelain throne.